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THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN UNDERGROUND COMPUTING / Published Periodically
======================================================================
ISSN 1074-3111 Volume One, Issue Five August 1, 1994
======================================================================
Editor-in-Chief: Scott Davis (dfox@fc.net)
Co-Editor/Technology: Max Mednick (kahuna@fc.net)
Consipracy Editor: Gordon Fagan (flyer@fennec.com)
Information Systems: Carl Guderian (bjacques@usis.com)
Computer Security: John Logan (ice9@fennec.com)
** ftp site: etext.archive.umich.edu /pub/Zines/JAUC
U.S. Mail:
The Journal Of American Underground Computing
10111 N. Lamar #25
Austin, Texas 78753-3601
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
IMPORTANT ADDRESSES -
============================================================================
To Subscribe to "TJOAUC", send mail to: sub@fennec.com
All questions/comments about this publication to: comments@fennec.com
Send all articles/info that you want published to: submit@fennec.com
Commercial Registration for Profitable Media: form1@fennec.com
Advertising Rates: rates@fennec.com
============================================================================
"The underground press serves as the only effective counter to a growing
power, and more sophisticated techniques used by establishment mass media
to falsify, misrepresent, misquote, rule out of consideration as a priori
ridiculous, or simply ignore and blot out of existence: data, books,
discoveries that they consider prejudicial to establishment interest..."
(William S. Burroughs and Daniel Odier, "The Job", Viking, New York, 1989)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Contents Copyright (C) 1994 The Journal Of American Underground Computing
and/or the author of the articles presented herein. All rights reserved.
Nothing may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission
of the Editor-In-Chief and/or the author of the article. This publication
is made available periodically to the amateur computer hobbyist free of
charge. Any commercial usage (electronic or otherwise) is strictly
prohibited without prior consent of the Editor, and is in violation of
applicable US Copyright laws. To subscribe, send email to sub@fennec.com
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
DISCLAIMER AND NOTICE TO DISTRIBUTORS -
NOTE: This electronic publication is to be distributed free of charge
without modifications to anyone who wishes to have a copy. Under NO
circumstances is any issue of this publication, in part or in whole,
to be sold for money or services, nor is it to be packaged with other
computer software, including, but not limited to CD Rom disks, without
the express written or verbal consent of the author and/or editor.
To obtain permission to distribute this publication under any of the
certain circumstances stated above, please contact the editor at one of
the addresses above. If you have intentions of publishing this journal
in any of the ways described above, or you are in doubt about whether or
not your intentions conflict with the restrictions, please contact the
editor. FOR A COPY OF THE REGISTRATION FORM, MAIL - form1@fennec.com
This publication is provided without charge to anyone who wants it.
This includes, but is not limited to lawyers, government officials,
cops, feds, hackers, social deviants, and computer hobbyists. If anyone
asks for a copy, please provide them with one, or mail the subscription
list so that you may be added.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
LET THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN UNDERGROUND COMPUTING ADVERTISE FOR YOU.
Computer services, Online access, Books, Software, Video, Music,
Wierdness, Publishing, Hardware, Anything!
For more information, send electronic mail to: rates@fennec.com
You will be mailed a detailed list of rates and other information.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
COMING SOON!!! The Journal's own World-Wide Web Home Page. You will be
notified by mail when it is ready for use.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN UNDERGROUND COMPUTING - Volume 1, Issue 5
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1) The Next Thirty Years: Sociolegal Implications
Of The Information Technology Explosion Steve Ryan
2) Advertising On The Net Fawn Fitter
3) Availability Of TJOAUC; Overseas Fido Gateways Editors
4) Cyberpasse Manifesto Don Webb
5) AA BBS Convicted! Anon News Svc
6) Open Platform Under Threat By Monopoly Interests Anonymous
7) House Opens Vote Results; HR 3937 Shabbir Safdar
8) High-Speed Internet Access Expanded; Minnesota Dennis Fazio
9) Internet Access Now Available For All Minn. Teachers Dennis Fazio
10) Legion Of Doom T-Shirt Ad Chris Goggans
11) White House Retreats On Clipper Stanton McCandlish
12) Why Cops Hate Civilians Unknown
13) Public Space On Info Highway Ctr. Media Ed.
14) Software Key Escrow - A New Threat? Tim May
15) Hoods Hit The Highway Charlotte Lucas
16) The Internet And The Anti-Net Nick Arnett
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
The Computer Is Your Friend -Unknown
Send Money, Guns, And Lawyers -H. S. Thompson
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
THE NEXT THIRTY TEARS: SOCIOLEGAL IMPLICATIONS
OF THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY EXPLOSION
By Steve Ryan (blivion@nuchat.sccsi.com)
[EDITOR'S NOTE: This is facinating reading! It is a college thesis
written by an attorney who is a friend of the JAUC staff. Please
keep in mind that it was written in *1980* and is a fantastic
and accurate look into the future from his perspective in 1980.
Feel free to mail the editors with any comments on this one and
especially feel free to drop Steve a note with your opinions.]
I do romance the law. It's alive, it's vibrant, its' bubling. Every time
society tries something, we have new laws.
--Hon. Jack Pope, Associate Justice Supreme Court of Texas
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, an attempt is made to
acquaint the reader with current trends in computer technology which are
likely to have a major impact on American life in the forseeable future,
and to provide an overview of the staggering dimensions of the information-
handling revolution now in progress. Second, the response of the American
legal system to this explosive growth in the application of computer
technology is examined critically and areas of current and future legal
concern are outlined. No attempt has been made to provide an in-depth
legal analysis of the current state of the law in any single area;
the reader in search of such is reffered to the numerous excellent legal
periodicals presently published in this field.
I. DATA-HANDLING SYSTEMS OF THE FUTURE
It is difficult to overstate the rapidity oand magnitude of the
technological advances occurring every year in the data processing industry.
New developments and applications of those developments are announced with
bewildering rapidity. Enormous amounts of dollars are poured into research
and development every year by the American data processing industry, and
the pace of change is so rapid that those who work with customers must keep
current or risk having their knowledge and skills become obsolescent within
a year or two.
HARDWARE
This near-exponential rate of technical progress can be quantiativley
expressed through several different conceptual "handles." The number of
additions per second performed by computers in the U.S. every year grew by
three orders of magnitude (factor 1,000) between 1955 and 1965, and again
by the same factor in the decade 1965-1975. This number appears to be still
growing at the rate of 100% per year. Between 1955 and 1975 C. P. U.
memory size shrank by over four orders of magnitude (factor 10,000) and
this trend continues. Speed of operation has been rising more linearly,
at the rate of two orders of magnitude (factor 100) per decade, and the
ultimate limiting speed (dictated by the speed with which the electrical
impulses propagate through conductors) is still almost two and a one-half
orders of magnitude away. The cost of computer storage devices is plunging
at the rate of nearly three orders of magnitude per decade. The density
with which intergrated circuit chips can be packed with electronic
components is now measured in the millions devices per square inch. It
has been projected that during this decade the percentage of the gross
national product contributed by the data processing industry (broadly
defined) will outstrip that contributed by the auto industry.
COMMUNICATIONS
Similar advances have been occurring in the communications industry,
slashing the cost of maintaining computer-to-user and computer-to-computer
information links. The major trends are development of satellite, fiber
optic, and laswer methods of data transmission. As initially developed,
the cost to lease a 900-channel transponder on a satellite was between on
and one-half and two million dollars per year. In the first half of this
decade , this cost is expected to drop to $250,000 per year. The greatest
expense of satellite utilization is the cost of placing it in orbit; this
will become cheaper by at least this tak. The new generation of satellites
launched by reusable shuttle will offer a greater number of data channels
and perform switching functions as well as relay tasks; and all of this
greatly reduced cost. Annual growth of data communiccations through the
middle of this decade is projected to be 35 percent. Additionally, federal
deregulation of and new competitor entry into the communications industry
is expected to lower data communications costs in the future.
ECONOMICS
This author believes that the rapidly falling costs of computer hardware
and data links carry tremendous implications for the future. Economic
barriers to computer utilization are falling, and the end result will be
an exlosive profilferation of small personal and business computers and
intelligent terminals in an incredible variety of application. The
structure of business relations and transactions will change radically
as corporate America discovers that they cannot afford not to utilize
the new technology.
It will simply become bad business to process most transactions through
human hands and the mails in the form of paper of documents, when powerful
microprocessors having large memories are available for literally pennies
per chip. Speed-of-light datalinks cheaply available for these machines
will eliminate time lags as a source of inefficiency and boost productivity.
PERSONAL COMPUTING
The same factors that make widespread use of data handling equipment
inevitable in the business world will also have the effect of placing
small, cheap computers by the millions in nonbusiness or personal
applications. Computers are possibly the most versatile tool human beings
have ever invented to extend their capabilities. Because they deal with
pure information, their potential applications are limitless, or rather
limited only by the ingenuity of their users. Nowhere is this more
evident than in the brand-new field of personal computers. For better or
worse, the personal computer revolution is upon us. The first true
personal computer was brought out in 1974 by M.I.T.S. Corporation.
Baded on the Intel 8080 Comuter-on-a-chip, the Model T of microprocessors,
it was sold by mail in kit form for $420.00. Customer response was
overwhelming, and M.I.T.S. was unable to to keep up with demand. At the
time of this writing, six years later, the American consumer is the
target of an enormous marketing effort for similar small computers mounted
by such corparate giants as Texas Instruments, Tandy Corp. (Radio Shack),
Sears & Roebuck, and a host of smaller competitors. Clearly, these
corporations believe in the market for and future of home computing enough
to back their beliefs with large capital investments.
The home computer, with appropriate interfaces and accessory hadware, can
play games, balance its owner's checkbook, optimize household energy usage,
play music, store information, show movies, do typing, draw pictures,
give its owner access to any database or other systems accessible by phone,
send mail, and let the cat out. Some enthusiasts predict that the home
computer will remake our way of life as drastically as the automobiles, and
will be the most explosive consumer product in human history, having a more
revolutionary effect than any other object ever sold. it is also predicted
that home and personal uses of computers will dwarf the ordinary computer
industry within five or ten years, and will do IBM great economic harm by
destroying the IBM-fostered image of computers as enormous, centralized,
horrendouly expensive machines requiring the services of a band of devoted
priest-programmers. These things remain to be seen. This author believes
that the most profound effects on American society created by the
microcomputer revolution will not be the result of dedicating small
computers to specific business and personal tasks but rather will result
from the ability of these countless small C.P.U.'s to communicate with
one another economically.
THE CONCEPT OF "THE NET"
In recent years, as communication technology began to catch up with advanced
computer technology, a trend toward distributed computation has occured in
systems design. Instead of a massive central computer linked to many
unitelligent I/O terminals, this new method of system architecture links
a number of central processing units into a network in which tasks can be
distributed to different locations for maximum efficiency in processing.
Networks are very efficient method of processing where the amount of
processing needed increases faster than the amount of data to be
transferred, and where a common specialized resouce is shared among
geographically desperesed end users. Minicomputers linked into centralized
computers in some applications, and they can be linked in such a manner that
individual minicomputers can fail without affecting the operational status
of the network.
Given the above-forecasted situation of millions of small business and
personal computers linked by common inexpensive communications channels,
it is easy to see how a gigantic, highly flexible meta-network of
minicomputers could be said to exist. The terms "network" and "distributed
processin" have customarily been used to refer to relatively small,
tightly interfaced groups of processors and are thus inadequate to use in
reference to such a huge complex of computers as would be formed by the
potential linkage of all the home and business computers of America.
Therefore the term "The Net" will be used in this paper to refer to such
a potential structure. This term has already gained currency with some
writers who are concerned with the social implicaitons of such an
electronic network.
Persons who are fearful of suspicious of the advent of The Net for whatever
reason, and persons who doubt that such a broadly-based and widely linked
national (and transnational) EDP system wil become an operational reality
in the near future will no doubt be suprised and/or dismayed to learn
that two private information utilities which demonstrate the feasibility
and usefulness of the Net concept are already on line and available to
minicomputer users today. These are The Source and MicroNet, both about a
year old. These services are accessed through telephone lines, which will
be the primary method of Net linkage until new technology make satellite-
based or fiber optic linkage economically competitive with ordinary
landline and microwave channels. Accessing these services augments the
computing power and usefulness of a home computer to and amazing extent.
By linking to a large mainframe, the small ones gain the power to program
in many languages ordinarily unavailable to them and gain the use of
utility programs such as word processors and text editors. Large libraries
of generally applicable business and financial programs and data are
available to subscribers, as well as stock market information. Also
available are game programs, UPI news wire service, New York Times news
service, and the New York Times Consumer Data Base, which abstracts over
60 publications.
The flexibility and broad utility of even these fledgling Net Linkage
systems is demonstrated by other revolutionary services information
utilities offer. The Source offers electonic mail service to its
subscribers; when users log on, the system notifies them of any messages
or mail it is holding for them. Users of the Source can also call a program
named CHAT, which enables direct two-way between any users simultaneously
logged on. MicroNet offers a fasicinating computerized version of CB radio
in which the user selects a numbered "Channel" which, in effect is a
"public airwave" of this small Net. All users linked on the same channel
receive every message transmitted on that channel; they can either join
the discourse or remain passive and watch the coversations of others on
their CRT. A disadvantage is that like CB, two users cannot transmit on
the same channel simultaneously without mutual interference.
The Source and MicroNet are privately operated for profit and charge the
subscriber for registration as a user and access time. An alternative
mode of linking isolated home computers is provided by Computer Community
Bulletin Boards (CCBBS), of which there are well over one hundred operating
now in the U.S. These are free services operated by a variety of small
computer users and related organizations, and are rapidly growing in
popularity. Unlike the information utilities, which have phone exchanges in
most large cities and therby spare their users high connect charges, CCBB
users must pay long distance charges unless the usefulness of CCBBs is
that no two-way communication is possible, only message posting within
the system. The software package needed to establish a CCBB costs only
about $65.
One final, rather ominous aspect of the commercial information utilities
is that it is required of applicants for user status to have a
Mastercharge or Visa card account for billing purposes. In other words,
person without identity in the presently existing credit subnet are denied
access to these new private Net components. As the Net incorporates more
data-handling subunits into itself and becomes more ubiquitous in American
life, it may strike users as unfair and coercive to discover that routing
one's financial transactions through the Net is a necessary prerequisite
to enjoying certain limited uses and benefites of The Net.
It is impossible to summarize or secribe all potential structures and
applications of the net likley to impact our society in the future because
of the amorphousness inherent in its conceptualization. For example,
although every EDP device capable of linking to the Net must be considered
a part of it, this linage may be "broad" or "Narrow": a sensitive
Government EDP file system with heavy security would be only narrowly
accessible from other Net components, whereas an individual's personal
computer would of necessity be broadly accessible form almost all other
Net components because of the wide variety of functions it performs (mail,
entertainment access, retail buying and recordkeeping, phone message
functions, etc.). As each new Net subunit goes online to the common Net,
that subunit must determine (1) what it wants from the rest of the Net,
and (2) what it is willing to make available to those who can now access
it as part of the net. Thus, considerations of function and security
determine what role each subunit will play in relation to The Net as a
whole, and these considerations will be different for each subunit.
The net must not be thought of as monolithic block of EDP devices joined
together, but rater as a vast and turbulent population of dicrete subunits
whose only common characteristic is a need for the efficient communication
and optimal use of EDP technology provided by The Net's linkage.
The Net will be far more than a group of computers exchanging data and
software; widespread acceptance and utiliztion of Net linkage and
effieciency concepts will probably eventually result in the routing of
most current non-EDP methods of information transfer through the omnipresent
microcomputers. It will become inefficient and unnecessary to have a TV
set, or a newspaper, or a mailbox, or a radio in one's house when
comprehensive Net access through an efficient, centralized home computer
(whose sole design function is information handling) is just a keystroke
away. One theme which home computer/Net enthusiasts frequently sound these
days is that the Net will solve the petroleum crisis by making ti largely
unnecessary for people to leave their homes. Why drive to an office when
one can transact business, give a lecture, attend a class, generate
documents, transfer information, access a huge variety of data bases, and
receive all communications at one's home keyboard? The Net has the
potential of becoming America's primary avenue of business and even social
interaction in the forseeable future.
One troubling question occurs as we examin the social consequence of the
Net ethic of efficiency as the ultimate justification for change: what
happens to individuals who, for economic or personal reasons, cannot or
will not participate in the net society? Unless non-net modes of
information handling are retained in all areas of Net pre-eminence, these
individuals run the risk of effectibely becoming non-persons. One
solution to this problem would be govermental maintenece of free public
computer terminals, where those unfortunate enough to lack the cash or
hardware necessary for net access could perform the necessary interactions
with their electronic society. Hopefully, net Participants will keep open
non-net channels of comminication to forestall the possiblity that the
information revolution will create two classes of American citizens:
Net-priviledged and invisible. Property utilized, The Net can be
beneficial in countless ways. But even if its use becomes a new norm,
legal protection is necessary to ensure that no citizen suffers injury or
diadvantage as a result of failing to join The Net. This writer believes
that economic considerations related to efficiency and the technology
revolution now occurring cannot fail to propel us willingly down the road
to a Net society, even in the face of the vague hostility most people feel
toward the increasing intrusion of computers into their lives. The day
may yet come when The Net is so central to American life that a person
excluded from access to it by State action might successfully argue in
court that his Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and assembly
have been effectively abrogated.
II. AREAS OF CONTINUING LEGAL CONCERN
PRIVACY
Privacy will continue to be a controversial issue as computer technology
increases in impact on the daily life of Americans. The magnitude of the
perceived threat to individuals created by computer recordkeeping will
increase as the system-to-system network of computer linkages expands.
The scope of future Federal protective legislation will almost certainly
extend to regulate private data collectors as well as governmental ones.
Efforts have already been made in this direction. In 1974, Congressional
legislation was proposed containing provisions making all private personal
record systems subject to F.O.I.A.- type controls on collection, accuracy,
and dissemination. This bill also set up a Federal Privacy Board to
monitor and enforce its provisions, and provided criminal penalties for
its violation as well as vibil remedies for persons injured by unfair
information practices.
The gradual development of a Net-Type structure of data processors and
their associated databases will surely result in extreme public concern
about its possible harmful uses. It is thus a certainty that such a
system would be very heavily regulated by the congress under its commerce
and "federal media" powers. In fact, it is impossible to conceive of how
the public would tolerate the existence of such an intimidating system
without detailed privacy controls on it. The Privacy Act of 1974 is only
the first halting step toward the creation of a comprehensive code of fair
information practices necessary to let Americans enjoy the benefits of
advanced computer technology without fear.
PROTECTION OF ECONOMIC INTERESTS
Since copyright protection of proprietary computer software is inadequate
to protect novel ideas and algrorithms incorporated therein, and since
the patenablility of software has been effectively denied by Supreme Court
ruling, further protection of substantial financial investments made in
the development of software would seem to be necessary in the future.
Common law and State statutory protection of such programs as trade secrets
will probably be inadequate in many respects to afford the degree of
protection necessary to encourage heavy corporate investment in software
research and development, as the industry grows in importance to all areas
of economic life. Public policy will militate that further protection
be granted by explicit statutory means. The most logical way to go about
this would be by act of Congress, under either of the broad copyright or
commerce powers.
Congress has already realized that the trend toward the use of Electronic
Funds Transfers and the computerization of economic activity will present
unknown problems in the future. Current EFT legislation in force has
established a commission charged with the duty of evaluating the future
development of this area and reporting to the congress its findings and
conclusions. Present legislation concering EFT can only be considered a
skeleton of what will eventually prove necessary.
THE PROBLEMS OF ABUSE AND VULNERABILITY
The wide linkage capabilities of the components of The Net coupled with
the computerization of business records and transactions creates an
enormous potential for abuse in a variety of ways. Theft of CPU time and
software, manipulation of financial records, destruction of datafiles,
and even sabotage of whole systems are just a few of the potential abuses
that might occur. Computer people often see the compromise of a security
system designed to prevenet unauthorized access as a challenging
intellectual game, and try it even without criminal motive. Already, one
consequence of wide use of timesharing and networking techiniques is the
widespread acceptance of the ethic that any programs which may be found to
be somehow accessible from remote terminals can be treated as used as if
in the public domain (the "Peninsula Ethic"). Security problems are the
number-one concern in the design and establishment of The Net. The Net
concept is unworkable without means of controlling access and limiting
possible manupulations of data contained in Net subunits. Due to its
flexibility of linkage, security control in the Net will not be physical
in nature but will be provided by confidential coding and password
techniques. Although generally speaking, what one person can do, another
can undo, new "trapdoor" cryptological techniques have been discovered
that make it possible to create an access control code system that cannot
be cracked even by computers in a reasonable amount of time. This offers
hope for the feasibility of a fairly abuse-free Net.
Still, no security system can be said to be totally proof against
compromise. Prevention of abuse is the job of computer sercurity
specialist, but the law can play a large role in discouraging abuse by
imposing sanctions for it. The currecnt Federal criminal law provisions
applicable to computer abuse are a hodge-podge of miscellaneous statutes
generally oriented around traditional fraud and misappropriation-of-
property concepts that often present difficulties in application to
computer-related wrongful activity. In the future it will become necessary
to greatly refine our collective societal concepts of what contitutes
impermissible conduct in relation to computers and their manifold
applications. The deterrent effect on persons tempted to misuse the vast
capbilities of computers would be greatly enhanced by the passage of
legislation targeted specifically at computer abuse rather than framed in
terms of traditional concepts of wrongdoing like fraud, theft, and
misappropriation. Prosecutors, when confronted by an instance of computer
abuse that clearly has damaged someone in a criminal manner, should not be
forced to search among and "stretch" the applications of the miscellaneous
batch of statutory provisions enacted when computers were a laboratory
curiosty.
Response to this problem has been made be Senator Abraham Ribibcoff of
Connecticut, the Charman of the Senat Governmenatal Affairs Committee.
In 1977, he sponsered legislation entitled The Federal Computer Systems
Protection Act of 1977,which has never been enacted. This proposed law
provides comprehensive santions against (1) introduction of fraudulent
records into computer systems, (2) improper alteration of destruction of
computer records, (3) unauthorized use of computer facilities, and (4) use
of computers to steal property of data. The bill was drafted to apply to
all computer systems used in interstate commerce, and not just those in
use by the Federal Governmet. Additionally, the measure eases the
jurisdictional and evidentiary burdens on prosecutors that make prosecution
of computer crime so difficult. Specific thought was given by the framers
of this legislation to the problems of unauthorized access and to the need
to assure the integrity of the growing EFTS network. This bill is an
outstinding attempt to deal now with the computer abuse problems that will
become increasingly more threatening in the future, and it is an excellent
example of how the response of the legal system should aggressively track
the pace of technological development.
CONCLUSION
The next thirty years will be a time of swift and revolutionary change in
American life related to computer usage on an uprecedented scale. At this
point in time, the emerging outline of the social and legal changes this
will inevitably cause are visible. The first halting steps have been
taken by congress to enact legislation dealing with the problems caused
by these changes, but the pace of progress is so rapid that there is
substantial time lag between the time a problem comes into existence and
the time our legal system turns its attention to the necessary solution.
This lag time must be reduced by increased awareness of the capabilities
and coming applications of computers on the respective parts of legislators,
attorneys, and judges; it is the duty of the legal system to serve the
needs of its society, and our society cannot wait until tomorrow to be
given the legal safeguards and processes it needs today in the area of
data processing.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
ADVERTISING ON THE NET
By Fawn Fitter (fsquared@netcom.com)
This article is copyright 1994 by Fawn Fitter
A cybersavvy business owner could be forgiven for thinking of the
Internet as an advertising opportunity like no other. After all, the Net,
with its 6,000 discussion groups known as "newsgroups," connects -- at
last count -- 2 million sites in 60 countries. That's 10 million
potential customers already self-sorted into 6,000 demographic slots, a
thought to make marketing executives weep with joy.
But while many commercial online services like CompuServe and Prodigy
have built electronic shopping malls where virtual vendors peddle their
wares, advertising is a touchy subject on the Internet itself.
Originally, commercial messages were banned on the government-funded
portions of the Net. Today, while they aren't forbidden, they are still
highly controversial. A practice known as "spamming" -- posting a message
to all 6,000 newsgroups at once -- has infuriated longtime citizens of
cyberspace.
Not long ago, two Phoenix attorneys "spammed" the Net with a long post
touting their expertise in U.S. immigration law. Mere weeks later,
another advertiser followed suit, shilling thigh-reducing cream in every
group from alt.pagan to comp.sys.mac.advocacy. Both were kicked off their
respective Net access providers for inappropriate use.
"The problem is not content, it's the appropriateness of the forum where
the ad appears," explained Mike Godwin, staff counsel for the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, which focuses on public interest and civil liberties
issues as they relate to computer communications. "The value of the
newsgroups lies in their being organized by subject matter. 'Spamming' is
like reshelving all the books in a library -- the information is there,
but it's impossible to find what's valuable."
Although indiscriminate salesmanship is frowned upon, there are still
ways to advertise online without crossing the bounds of netiquette. The
simplest way is to keep ads short and tasteful, indicate in their subject
headers that they are advertisements so people can skip them if they so
choose, and post them only to appropriate groups. In other words, a legal
advice newsgroup is the wrong place for an ad for couples workshops.
Signature files, which provide a tagged-on signature (or .sig, pronounced
"dot-sig") at the end of a user's post, are another inoffensive and
discreet way to promote a product or service provider. Many programmers
and consultants identify themselves in their .sigs, which are
automatically appended to their every post in any group they frequent.
The now-infamous "green card lawyers" have been dumped unceremoniously
from several online systems and have been refused accounts by others.
Despite the furor against them, they've defended their actions in
postings and newspaper articles by claiming that mass-distributed
advertising on the Net is convenient and therefore inevitable. They've
even started their own Internet marketing company, Cybersell, to bring
that day closer. One of the lawyers argued on CNN that "spamming" was
like "picking up the newspaper and getting advertisements along with the
sports pages."
But Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community and a well-known
defender of the Net, thinks it's more like "going to your mailbox and
finding two letters, a magazine, and 65,000 pieces of junk mail,
postage-due."
The Net works because people agree to give each other the minimal amount
of cooperation necessary to keep information flowing in a free but
organized way, Rheingold explained. "IIf people don't abide by an
agreement to limit discussion to the appropriate group, the groups lose
their function, and there will be no value in the system any more," he
said. But, he added, "the day will pass when sleazebags who try to take
advantage of the openness of the system will be shut out."
Rheingold is executive editor of HotWired, an online magazine being
launched this fall by the publisher of WIRED. HotWired will bring in
revenue by soliciting "sponsors" rather than "advertisers," as the Public
Broadcasting System does, he said.
In the future, advertisers may also spread the word by subsidizing
people's net usage, Godwin said. "They may say, 'look at our ads in
e-mail and we'll give you an hour's free online time'," he speculated.
"No one's actually done it yet, but companies are thinking about it."
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
AVAILIBILITY OF THIS MAGAZINE
A Message from the editorial staff
OVERSEAS FIDONET GATEWAYS NO LONGER SUPPORTED BY THIS MAGAZINE!
We will do everything in our power to get this publication to you in
a timely manner. And we certainly appreciate the hundreds of subscription
requests that we have received. There is one slight issue regarding the
distribution of this magazine that we must address. This new policy will
take effect immediately.
It is no longer feasable for us to add people to the mailing list who have
OVERSEAS FIDONET GATEWAYS. The reason for this is that some administrators
who operate these gateways are getting irate with the amount of traffic
coming through their systems from the USA in the form of large electronic
magazines.
AS LONG AS YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS DOES NOT HAVE A "%" IN IT, YOU'RE OK!
The second reason is that our mailing system may not handle the address
line properly due to the fact that Fido addresses overseas are usually
very long.
We are currently working on a way to set up an automatic mailing list
for those who do fit into this catagory so that you can have the magazine
mailed back to you when you know that the traffic in your area will be low.
We will update you as the situation develops.
Thank you for your understanding.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
CYBERPASSE MANIFESTO
By Don Webb (0004200716@mcimail.com)
This has no Copyright, and may be reposted at will.
We have long awaited the moment to release our manifesto, so that we would
not appear guilty of the sin of vanguardism. Since Bart Nagle has noted
that book publishers now note books bearing the suffix "Cyber" in the
title passe, we realize that it is time to strike while the iron is cooling.
The Cyberpasse movement began on October 8, 1966 when the BBC aired *The
Tenth Planet* -- part of their popular %Dr. Who% series. The Cybermen have
replaced their natural bodies with plastic and thus have become disease free
and nearly immortal. They represent the ideal of the Cyberpasse movement.
Cyberpasse will overtake cyberpunk, because we created it as a front.
The movement has great wealth and power, and is an open conspiracy. Any
number may play, provided that they obey the Cyberlaws. We are the rulers
of the world, the makers of the zeitgeist, and the oatmeal of reality.
These are the Cyberlaws, the key to Cyberpasse:
1. You must own a computer. It must be a boring computer with lots of
capacity for upward and downward networking. You favorite phrase is
"The computer is a tool." You must pretend incompetence with your
computer, so that people explain things for you, and do things for you.
Thus you learn to tap the skills of lots of experts.
2. You must belong to a frequent flyer plan. You'll travel a lot to see
other Cybermen. You must own a futon to put up traveling Cybermen.
You must make your visitors look as boring as possible, so as not to
tip off your neighbors that you are a planetary ruler.
3. You must appear dull. This is essential. Everyone must view you as a
harmless amateur. You must practice perfect manners, so you don't get
thrown out of places for being too dull.
4. You must foster a myth of a long-term illness.
Thusly you can call in sick for work, whenever a learning opportunity
presents itself. Knowledge is power.
5. You must You must place yourself in the middle of various webs of
information. Always share information, but always filter to extend
the Cybervalues of logic, and of slow and steady change. You must deny
that you are trying to improve the world, as always appear to be a
shambling slow witted machine that just happens to pass along the
correct information at one time. Remember humans are hostile to change
agents.
6. You must make sure that they're a lot of cutting edge movements around
to draw fire. As a long term way to secure this, be sure and strongly
support civil liberties issues.
7. You must always deny the importance of new information technologies.
This is not to stifle, but to make people think they are harmless. Always
argue that there is nothing new going on. This will make people, less
likely to fear/resist certain changes.
8. You must act every day to bring about the change into a cybersociety.
Each act must may be downplayed, but it must be constant and quiet.
Accumulate power to make your actions a little stronger. Afterall the
boss can OK the T1 phone lines for the business, and she can allow
personal Email accounts. Always have a boring explanation, economy,
efficiency, whatever. But be sure you never allow a step backward.
9. You must deny there is an organized Cyberpasse movement. Even to
yourself.
10. You must seek allies in all areas of society.
11. You must never act in anger, but only with logic
and harmonious feelings. Our battles are not the day to day battles
of the news. Our battle is that of the vegetable empire vast and slow.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
AA BBS - CONVICTED !
MEMPHIS, Tenn -- A federal jury convicted a California couple Thursday
of transmitting obscene pictures over a computer bulletin board.
The case has raised questions, in this age of international computer
networks, about a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that defines obscenity
by local community standards.
``This case would never have gone to trial in California,'' defense lawyer
Richard Williams said.
Prosecutor Dan Newsom, an assistant U.S. attorney, said the trial was the
first he knows of for computer bulletin board operators charged under federal
law with transmitting pornography featuring sex by adults.
Robert and Carleen Thomas, both 38, of Milpitas, Calif., were convicted of
transmitting sexually obscene pictures through interstate phone lines via
their members-only Amateur Action Bulletin Board System.
The Thomases were convicted on 11 criminal counts, each carrying maximum
sentences of five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
Thomas was acquitted on a charge of accepting child pornography mailed to him
by an undercover postal inspector.
The Thomases refused to comment after the verdict. They remain free on
$20,000 bond to await sentencing, for which no date was set.
Williams said his clients will appeal, arguing the jury was wrongly
instructed on how to apply the Supreme Court's standard on obscenity.
The trial raised questions of how to apply First Amendment free-speech
protections to ``cyberspace,'' the emerging community of millions of
Americans who use computers and modems to share pictures and words on every
imaginable topic.
Williams argued unsuccessfully before trial that prosecutors sought out a
city for the trial where a conservative jury might be found.
During the weeklong trial jurors were shown photographs carried over the
Thomases' bulletin board featuring scenes of bestiality and other sexual
fetishes. Williams argued this was voluntary, private communication between
adults who knew what they were getting by paying $55 for six months or $99
for a year.
Their conviction also covers videotapes they sent to Memphis via United
Parcel Service. The videotapes were advertised over the bulletin board.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
OPEN PLATFORM UNDER THREAT BY MONOPOLY INTERESTS!!!
Anonymously Submitted
First off, I apologise for sending this anonymously, but my company is
sufficiently close to the center of this dispute that the usual personal
disclaimers would not be enough. We have to do business with these people
and public criticism of them could lead to disconnexion and the collapse of
our business.
Recently the CIX Association (a Non-Profit 501(c)6 Trade Association) has
chosen to make a change to its policies that will make entry into the
internet extremely hard if not impossible for small companies or individuals
or cooperatives.
Some background: first there was the Arpanet, and it was for government
organizations and academics only. Slowly, private companies attached to the
Arpanet, but only when they had legitimate reasons to communicate with the
government organizations they connected to. Soon, enough private
organizations were connected that they saw advantages in talking to each
other, and they put in direct links to each other because they couldn't
transit the NSF backbone. Sometimes the connexion agreements for these
links were informally ad-hoc, other times the people connecting would come
to a 'settlement agreement'. This meant that at the end of each year, they
would work out the net flow of traffic over their link, and the side that
got the most benefit from it was contracted to pay the other side a cash
settlement.
There were the bad old days, and getting full connectivity to non-academic
sites by making lots of individual connexions was expensive.
Then along came the group of big companies who formed the CIX. They wrote a
contract that said that members would route each others packets without
settlement. People still made their own arrangements about who they
physically connected to, and their share of the cost of the wire etc, but
once connected, they could send packets to _anyone_ who was a
mutually-connected CIX member. And just to make sure there weren't pockets
of unconnected members, every member had also to make sure they had a
working path to the CIX backbone. That way A could talk to B even if it
meant going all the way to the CIX backbone in Falls Church VA.
In fact, most of the big vendors have direct connexions to each other, and
the CIX backbone itself is seldom transited. It's not an expensive or long
wire--just a couple of routers in Falls Church.
Now, the arrangement that CIX has decided to enforce as of November is that
they will route for their clients, and people directly connected to their
clients, but not people a step further downstream than that. Which means
that the clients of CIX clients who re-sell services will have to become
members of the CIX themselves, at a cost of $10000.
This isn't small change for the majority of sites that it affects, and it is
particularly insidious in that it halts completely the process that was
beginning to take place where bandwidth would be split into smaller and
smaller units by smaller and smaller enterprises, until you got down to the
level of a guy in his garage running 6 modems on his PC allowing access to
local people over his SLIP or PPP line to his own access provider down his
v.fast modem, that would be a small company running a 56K line up to their
access provider, who might be a medium company running a T1 to a big
provider.
With this change in policy, "Mom & Pop" internet connexions are no longer
possible. The game is for big players only. And I mean BIG--calculations
show that to reach break-even, a new vendor needs something like 400
customers from the start.
The CIX board justifies their change in policy by claiming it will actually
increase mutual interconnectivity, by adding more people to the communal
interoperability agreement. However, the facts are that the downstream
sites who are affected by this would have routed all packets going through
them anyway. It is, quite simply, an attempt by the big players to lock the
small players out of the market, to consolidate their oligarchy. And the
fact that they'll be collecting many many more $10,000 annual fees has not
gone unnoticed either.
This is one area where government interference _to ensure interoperability
only and to stop restrictive practises_ would be welcome by we smaller
players. All that the CIX contributes is a piece of paper saying that
people will cooperate--the cost of their hardware is small beer. People
who are in the CIX have an incentive to stay in because it keeps the
competition out. People outside the CIX _could_ make their own mutual
care because we can afford the fees (almost), and
it keeps out up and coming competitors. I don't feel this way, which is why
I'm posting, and why I have to post anonymously. But then, I don't own the
company.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
HOUSE RULES VOTE RESULTS; HR 3937 A DEAD END THIS YEAR
By Shabbir J. Safdar (shabbir@panix.com)
Organization: Voters Telecomm Watch (vtw@vtw.org)
INTRODUCTION
Voters Telecomm Watch keeps scorecards on legislators' positions on
legislation that affects telecommunications and civil liberties.
If you have updates to a legislator's positions, from either:
-public testimony,
-reply letters from the legislator,
-stated positions from their office,
please contact vtw@vtw.org so they can be added to this list.
General questions: vtw@vtw.org
Mailing List Requests: vtw-list-request@vtw.org
Press Contact: stc@vtw.org
Gopher URL: gopher://gopher.panix.com:70/11/vtw
WWW URL: We're working on it. :-)
RESULT OF THE HOUSE RULES COMMITTEE VOTE ON HR 3937
Based on information gathered by volunteers, we've been able to
piece together some of the positions of the House Rules Committee
as to how they voted for/against opening up HR 3937 to amendments on
the House floor. [This is now somewhat moot, as is explained in the
next section.]
Extensive kudos go to
Joe Thomas <jthomas@pawpaw.mitre.org>
gaj@portman.com (Gordon Jacobson)
who both did extensive work to help find this information.
Here are the results we were able to obtain:
[The committee voted 5-4 to open the bill]
HOUSE RULES COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Dist ST Name, Address, and Party Phone
==== == ======================== ==============
9 MA Moakley, John Joseph (D) 1-202-225-8273
UNSPECIFIED POSITION
3 SC Derrick, Butler (D) 1-202-225-5301
UNSPECIFIED POSITION
24 CA Beilenson, Anthony (D) 1-202-225-5911
UNSPECIFIED POSITION
24 TX Frost, Martin (D) 1-202-225-3605
UNSPECIFIED POSITION
10 MI Bonior, David E. (D) 1-202-225-2106
UNSPECIFIED POSITION
3 OH Hall, Tony P. (D) 1-202-225-6465
UNSPECIFIED POSITION
5 MO Wheat, Alan (D) 1-202-225-4535
UNSPECIFIED POSITION
6 TN Gordon, Bart (R) 1-202-225-4231
UNSPECIFIED POSITION
28 NY Slaughter, Louise M. (D) 1-202-225-3615
Voted "open"
22 NY Solomon, Gerald B. (R) 1-202-225-5614
Voted "open"
1 TN Quillen, James H. (R) 1-202-225-6356
Told a constituent he would vote for "open".
28 CA Dreier, David (R) 1-202-225-2305
UNSPECIFIED POSITION
14 FL Goss, Porter J. (R) 1-202-225-2536
UNSPECIFIED POSITION
It is probably not worth the trouble to ask the remaining legislators
how they voted unless you happen to chat with their staff often.
STATUS OF THE BILL (updated 7/21/94)
If you read the appropriate newsgroups (or any major newspaper) you've
seen the news about the Gore/Cantwell compromise. Since everyone
has reprinted it already, we'll not reprint it again, though we'll
happily send you a copy should you have missed it.
The upshot of this is that Rep. Maria Cantwell will not be offering
her amendment and therefore HR 3937 is a dead end this year for
liberalizing cryptography exports. Since VTW is an organization dedicated
to working on legislation, and there is no longer a piece of relevant
legislation, we will be concentrating on other projects. The "cantwell"
section of our archive will be reworked, and the records of legislators
that voted will be kept there for future reference. [NOTE: these
voting records will also be rolled into our 1994 Voters Guide]
Here is the final schedule/chronology of the bill
Jul 21, 94 Rep. Cantwell and Vice Pres. Al Gore compromise on seven
principles, retreating on the Clipper chip; Rep. Cantwell
chooses not continue to press the legislation or the amendment
(see relevant articles in today's NY Times and Washington Post)
Jul 20, 94 HR3937 comes to House floor; a "good" amendement will be offered
Jul 11, 94 House Rules Committee marks HR3937 "open"; allowing amendments
Jun 30, 94 [*** vote postponed, perhaps till the week of 7/11/94]
House Rules Comm. decides whether to allow amendments
on the bill when it reaches the House floor
Jun 14, 94 Gutted by the House Select Committee on Intelligence
May 20, 94 Referred to the House Select Committee on Intelligence
May 18, 94 Passed out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 18
attached to HR 3937, the General Export Administration Act
Dec 6, 93 Referred to the Subcommittee on Economic Policy, Trade and
Nov 22, 93 Referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
1994 VOTERS GUIDE
Voters Telecomm Watch believes that you should be informed about your
legislators' positions on key issues. We will be developing a survey
to give to current legislators and their challengers that will gauge
their positions on key issues involving telecommunications and civil
liberties. These results will be made publicly available on the net
for you to use in casting your vote in November.
We'll be depending on you to help get legislative candidates to fill
out and return their surveys. Please watch this space for the
announcement of survey availability in the coming weeks.
If you wish to participate in the development of the survey, feel free
to join the working list by mailing a note to that effect to
vtw@vtw.org
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
HIGH-SPEED INTERNET ACCESS EXPANDED THROUGHOUT MINNESOTA
By Dennis Fazio (dfazio@mr.net)
Contact:
Dennis Fazio, Executive Director
Minnesota Regional Network
511 11th Avenue South, Box 212
Minneapolis, MN 55415
(612) 342-2890
dfazio@MR.Net
Minneapolis, MN, July 18, 1994 -- The Minnesota Regional Network (MRNet), a
nonprofit corporation that provides connections to the burgeoning world-wide
Internet in Minnesota, has implemented a major statewide expansion by
installing several additional access sites around the state using a new data
transport technology called Frame Relay. This new technology is available as
a regular service by US West<73>s !nterPRISE Networking Services division. It
allows MRNet to expand its central hub sites, which are locations where many
customer connections are gathered together, to the four corners of
Minnesota, providing a more economical means of connection for colleges,
schools, libraries, government agencies and businesses in any city or town
in the state.
The Internet, a high-speed network of networks, is a current major component
of what is coming to be called the "Information Superhighway". It is
composed of a multitude of computer and information networks including
international links, national backbones, regional and state distribution
networks and campus or corporate networks. These are all connected in a
seamless whole creating an information infrastructure containing several
million individual computers used by ten to twenty million people around the
globe. In Minnesota, the Minnesota Regional Network or MRNet, is the primary
statewide distribution network for Internet access.
"The deployment of these new network switching technologies has the
potential to revolutionize the creation of wide-area networks," says Dennis
Fazio, Executive Director of MRNet. "It has reduced the cost of providing
high-speed connections to customer sites, not only within the US West Frame
Relay service areas, but even in the outlying towns beyond the suburbs and
in between the major state metropolitan areas."
Previously, point-to-point phone circuits had to be connected and expensive
multi-port hub equipment installed in hub sites. Frame Relay service allows
MRNet to install smaller less complex and less expensive equipment since the
aggregation of traffic from multiple customer connections is done within US
West<73>s switching equipment. It is necessary to only have a single connection
from the hub site into the Frame Relay service. Additionally, the end-site
connection links are less expensive, since they now only need a termination
point at the customer's site. The other end of the link is brought directly
into the Frame Relay system and doesn<73>t incur any termination charges, which
are the most expensive portion of a digital circuit. This means that it is
now more economical to cover the entire state by extending links to the
nearest Frame Relay service area than it is to distribute many more hubs to
cover the large number of communities necessary to provide full state-wide
access. Finally, Frame Relay service is a much higher quality of service,
since all links are monitored and maintained 24 hours a day by US West<73>s
advanced engineers and technicians.
With this new expansion, MRNet can provide lower cost direct Frame Relay
access in Duluth, Hibbing, Thief River Falls, Bemidji, Brainerd, Moorhead,
Willmar, St. Cloud, Marshall, Owatonna and Rochester in addition to the Twin
Cities metro area. Those towns outside these areas can be served by
extending a link to one of these 12 distributed sites.
MRNet has established partnerships with the University of Minnesota in the
Twin Cities and Duluth and the Minnesota State University System to share
long distance trunk lines, which bring the outstate traffic to the Twin
Cities for forwarding to the Internet, and to obtain space to house
equipment.
Beyond this initial new deployment, plans are being put in place to expand
local calling access for dialup subscribers in other parts of the state.
This will provide lower-cost links to the Internet for individuals and small
organizations who cannot yet justify the effort and expense of a high-speed
digital link. Presently, local calling access is available in the Twin
Cities, Rochester and St. Cloud. Toll-free access is already available to
Minnesota educators in all parts of the state through the InforMNs
demonstration project, a joint effort implemented by MRNet, TIES and the
Minnesota Department of Education. This effort is partially subsidized by
the state to provide equal access to all state educators. There are now
about 1,000 subscribers on the InforMNs system.
The ability to provide this state-wide network expansion was helped in part
with funds from the National Science Foundation via a grant to CICNet, a
regional network comprised primarily of the Big-10 Universities in which
several state networks including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois,
Michigan and Indiana participated. This was a for a project titled "Rural
Datafication" whose purpose was to extend Internet access to areas not
easily served in the major metropolitan areas.
The Minnesota Regional Network is an independent member-based nonprofit
corporation that has been providing access to the Internet since 1988. Its
mission is to enhance the academic, research and economic environment of the
state through the use of computer and information networks. It is the
leading provider of Internet access in Minnesota and now has more than 100
colleges, universities, libraries, school districts, nonprofit
organizations, government agencies and businesses listed as connected
members. Additionally, over 250 individuals and small organizations or
businesses have access via various forms of dialup connections. MRNet works
cooperatively with the state<74>s higher education community, the state
government and several other service organizations of all types to expand
and increase the level and quality of world-wide network access for the
improvement of education, general research and commercial business
operations.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
INTERNET ACCESS NOW AVAILABLE FOR ALL MINNESOTA TEACHERS
By Dennis Fazio (dfazio@mr.net)
MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL, MN, July 24, 1994 -- Nearly 1,000 Minnesota teachers
are cruising the information superhighway this summer via InforMNs -
Internet for Minnesota Schools, a service offered to K-12 educators
throughout the state. Using the direct full-function access to the Internet
that InforMNs provides, teachers browse through on-line databases and
library catalogs around the world; they have access to U.S. government
information from a number of agencies including NASA, the Department of
Education, and the National Institutes of Health; and they share lesson
plans, ideas for more effective teaching, and thematic classroom activities
with other teachers and students.
For instance, the Wolf Studies Project of the International Wolf Center in
Ely, Minnesota allows students and teachers around the world to hear, see,
and track radio-collared wolves in the Superior National Forest via the
Internet. They can read reports, see pictures and video images, and hear
sound files about the wolves' movement and activity that are posted on the
Wolf Studies Project Gopher server. In another project, students and
teachers in Minnesota have been exchanging electronic mail with their
counterparts in Kamchatka, Russia for the past year. This August the
Kamchatka Ministry of Education is sponsoring the Second Annual Educational
Travel Seminar to the Russian Far East with the help of the Minnesota
Global Education Resource Center. These kinds of resources and activities,
and the communication that happens between people, are what make the
Internet what is -- a worldwide network of computers, resources, and the
people that use them.
InforMNs is available to teachers, administrators, and staff from any
school district, public or private, in Minnesota. Subscriptions run for a
12-month period and can start at any time. The fee is $20 per month, paid
annually, and provides up to 30 hours of toll free access per month.
Software, user guides, and a toll free helpline for on-going support are
included. In addition, the InforMNs service provides one day of training
for one person in each subscribing school building to prepare that person
to give on-site assistance to his or her colleagues. To subscribe or for
more information, call InforMNs at (612) 638-8786 or send email to
howe@informns.k12.mn.us.
InforMNs is funded in part by an appropriation from the state legislature
to the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) to provide Internet access
to all Minnesota schools. The appropriation subsidizes the cost of
providing the service so that toll free dial-up access is ensured from any
school in the state, regardless of its location. Of the 1,000 subscribers,
approximately half connect to the network via local calls in St. Cloud,
Rochester, and the Twin Cities, and half use the InforMNs 800 toll free
access number.
In addition to toll free access, InforMNs subscribers receive all the
software they need to connect their Macintosh or IBM-compatible personal
computers directly to the Internet. After making a dial-up connection with
an ordinary phone line and a modem, the InforMNs user's computer becomes
one of the estimated two million computers now on the Internet worldwide.
This method of connection differs from the more familiar link to a bulletin
board system or on-line service like Compuserve, where the user's access to
the Internet is relayed through a central computer operated by the bulletin
board owner or on-line service provider. The InforMNs direct connection
allows teachers to use all the features and resources available on the
Internet including news groups, discussion lists, electronic mail,
Gopher-organized resources, the World Wide Web, and file transfer.
Information flows from a distant Internet repository directly to the user's
own Macintosh or PC.
The InforMNs service is provided by a partnership of the Minnesota
Department of Education, the Minnesota Regional Network (MRNet), and
Technology Information and Educational Services (TIES). In addition, the
University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State University System (MSUS)
share use of their telecommunications infrastructure with the project, and
InforMNs was launched with the support of the Minnesota Educational Media
Organization (MEMO) and the Project for Automated Libraries (PALS) at
Mankato State University.
For more information, contact:
Marla Davenport, davenpo@informns.k12.mn.us, (612)638-8793
Margo Berg, mberg@mr.net, (612)724-2705
InforMNs - Internet for Minnesota Schools
2665 Long Lake Road, Suite 250
Roseville, MN 55113-2535
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
LEGION OF DOOM T-SHIRTS
By Chris Goggans <phrack@well.sf.ca.us>
After a complete sellout at HoHo Con 1993 in Austin, TX this past
December, the official Legion of Doom t-shirts are available
once again. Join the net luminaries world-wide in owning one of
these amazing shirts. Impress members of the opposite sex, increase
your IQ, annoy system administrators, get raided by the government and
lose your wardrobe!
Can a t-shirt really do all this? Of course it can!
"THE HACKER WAR -- LOD vs MOD"
This t-shirt chronicles the infamous "Hacker War" between rival
groups The Legion of Doom and The Masters of Destruction. The front
of the shirt displays a flight map of the various battle-sites
hit by MOD and tracked by LOD. The back of the shirt
has a detailed timeline of the key dates in the conflict, and
a rather ironic quote from an MOD member.
(For a limited time, the original is back!)
"LEGION OF DOOM -- INTERNET WORLD TOUR"
The front of this classic shirt displays "Legion of Doom Internet World
Tour" as well as a sword and telephone intersecting the planet
earth, skull-and-crossbones style. The back displays the
words "Hacking for Jesus" as well as a substantial list of "tour-stops"
(internet sites) and a quote from Aleister Crowley.
All t-shirts are sized XL, and are 100% cotton.
Cost is $15.00 (US) per shirt. International orders add $5.00 per shirt for
postage.
Send checks or money orders. Please, no credit cards, even if
it's really your card.
Name: __________________________________________________
Address: __________________________________________________
City, State, Zip: __________________________________________
I want ____ "Hacker War" shirt(s)
I want ____ "Internet World Tour" shirt(s)
Enclosed is $______ for the total cost.
Mail to: Chris Goggans
603 W. 13th #1A-278
Austin, TX 78701
These T-shirts are sold only as a novelty items, and are in no way
attempting to glorify computer crime.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
WHITE HOUSE RETREATS ON CLIPPER
By Stanton McCandlish (mech@eff.org)
Yesterday, the Clinton Administration announced that it is taking several
large, quick steps back in its efforts to push EES or Clipper
encryption technology. Vice-President Gore stated in a letter to
Rep. Maria Cantwell, whose encryption export legislation is today being
debated on the House floor, that EES is being limited to voice
communications only.
The EES (Escrowed Encryption Standard using the Skipjack algorithm, and
including the Clipper and Capstone microchips) is a Federal Information
Processing Standard (FIPS) designed by the National Security Agency, and
approved, despite a stunningly high percentage anti-EES public comments on
the proposal) by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Since
the very day of the announcement of Clipper in 1993, public outcry against
the key "escrow" system has been strong, unwavering and growing rapidly.
What's changed? The most immediate alteration in the White House's
previously hardline path is an expressed willingness to abandon the EES
for computer applications (the Capstone chip and Tessera card), and push
for its deployment only in telephone technology (Clipper). The most
immediate effect this will have is a reduction in the threat to the
encryption software market that Skipjack/EES plans posed.
Additionally, Gore's letter indicates that deployment for even the telephone
application of Clipper has been put off for months of studies, perhaps
partly in response to a draft bill from Sens. Patrick Leahy and Ernest
Hollings that would block appropriation for EES development until many
detailed conditions had been met.
And according to observers such as Brock Meeks (Cyberwire Dispatch) and
Mark Voorhees (Voorhees Reports/Information Law Alert), even Clipper is
headed for a fall, due to a variety of factors including failure in
attempts to get other countries to adopt the scheme, at least one state
bill banning use of EES for medical records, loss of NSA credibility after
a flaw in the "escrowed" key system was discovered by Dr. Matt Blaze of
Bell Labs, a patent infringement lawsuit threat (dealt with by buying off
the claimant), condemnation of the scheme by a former Canadian Defense
Minister, world wide opposition to Clipper and the presumptions behind it,
skeptical back-to-back House and Senate hearings on the details of the
Administration's plan, and pointed questions from lawmakers regarding
monopolism and accountability.
One of the most signigicant concessions in the letter is that upcoming
encryption standards will be "voluntary," unclassified, and exportable,
according to Gore, who also says there will be no moves to tighten export
controls.
Though Gore hints at private, rather than governmental, key "escrow," the
Administration does still maintain that key "escrow" is an important part of
its future cryptography policy.
EFF would like to extend thanks to all who've participated in our online
campaigns to sink Clipper. This retreat on the part of the Executive
Branch is due not just to discussions with Congresspersons, or letters
from industry leaders, but in large measure to the overwhelming response from
users of computer-mediated communication - members of virtual communities
who stand a lot to gain or lose by the outcome of the interrelated
cryptography debates. Your participation and activism has played a key
role, if not the key role, in the outcome thus far, and will be vitally
important to the end game!
Below is the public letter sent from VP Gore to Rep. Cantwell.
******
July 20, 1994
The Honorable Maria Cantwell
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C., 20515
Dear Representative Cantwell:
I write to express my sincere appreciation for your efforts to move
the national debate forward on the issue of information security and export
controls. I share your strong conviction for the need to develop a
comprehensive policy regarding encryption, incorporating an export policy
that does not disadvantage American software companies in world markets
while preserving our law enforcement and national security goals.
As you know, the Administration disagrees with you on the extent to
which existing controls are harming U.S. industry in the short run and the
extent to which their immediate relaxation would affect national security.
For that reason we have supported a five-month Presidential study. In
conducting this study, I want to assure you that the Administration will
use the best available resources of the federal government. This will
include the active participation of the National Economic Council and the
Department of Commerce. In addition, consistent with the Senate-passed
language, the first study will be completed within 150 days of passage of
the Export Administration Act reauthorization bill, with the second study
to be completed within one year after the completion of the first. I want
to personally assure you that we will reassess our existing export controls
based on the results of these studies. Moreover, all programs with
encryption that can be exported today will continue to be exportable.
On the other hand, we agree that we need to take action this year
to assure that over time American companies are able to include information
security features in their programs in order to maintain their admirable
international competitiveness. We can achieve this by entering into an new
phase of cooperation among government, industry representatives and privacy
advocates with a goal of trying to develop a key escrow encryption system
that will provide strong encryption, be acceptable to computer users
worldwide, and address our national needs as well.
Key escrow encryption offers a very effective way to accomplish our
national goals, That is why the Administration adopted key escrow
encryption in the "Clipper Chip" to provide very secure encryption for
telephone communications while preserving the ability for law enforcement
and national security. But the Clipper Chip is an approved federal
standard for telephone communications and not for computer networks and
video networks. For that reason, we are working with industry to
investigate other technologies for those applications.
The Administration understands the concerns that industry has
regarding the Clipper Chip. We welcome the opportunity to work with
industry to design a more versatile, less expensive system. Such a key
escrow system would be implementable in software, firmware, hardware, or
any combination thereof, would not rely upon a classified algorithm, would
be voluntary, and would be exportable. While there are many severe
challenges to developing such a system, we are committed to a diligent
effort with industry and academia to create such a system. We welcome your
offer to assist us in furthering this effort.
We also want to assure users of key escrow encryption products that
they will not be subject to unauthorized electronic surveillance. As we
have done with the Clipper Chip, future key escrow systems must contain
safeguards to provide for key disclosure only under legal authorization and
should have audit procedures to ensure the integrity of the system. Escrow
holders should be strictly liable for releasing keys without legal
authorization.
We also recognize that a new key escrow encryption system must
permit the use of private-sector key escrow agents as one option. It is
also possible that as key escrow encryption technology spreads, companies
may established layered escrowing services for their own products. Having
a number of escrow agents would give individuals and businesses more
choices and flexibility in meeting their needs for secure communications.
I assure you the President and I are acutely aware of the need to
balance economic an privacy needs with law enforcement and national
security. This is not an easy task, but I think that our approach offers
the best opportunity to strike an appropriate balance. I am looking
forward to working with you and others who share our interest in developing
a comprehensive national policy on encryption. I am convinced that our
cooperative endeavors will open new creative solutions to this critical
problem.
Sincerely,
Al Gore
AG/gcs
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
WHY COPS HATE CIVILIANS
Author Unknown
Posted By Don Montgomery (donrm@sr.hp.com)
Why Cops Hate You or If You Have to Ask, Get Out of the Way
Have you ever been stopped by a traffic cop and, while he was
writing a ticket or giving you a warning, you got the feeling he would
just love to yank you out of the car, right through the window, and
smash your face into the front fender? Have you ever had a noisy little
spat with someone, and a cop cruising by calls, Everything all right
over there?
Did you maybe sense that he really hoped everything was not all
right, that he wanted one of you to answer, No, officer, this idiot's
bothering me? That all he was looking for was an excuse to launch
himself from the cruiser and play a drum solo on your skull with his
nightstick?
Did you ever call the cops to report a crime, maybe someone stole
something from your car or broke into your home, and the cops act as if
it were your fault? That they were sorry the crook didn't rip you off
for more? That instead of looking for the culprit, they'd rather give
you a shot in the chops for bothering them with your bullshit in the
first place?
If you've picked up on this attitude from your local sworn
protectors, it's not just paranoia. They actually don't like you. In
fact cops don't just dislike you, they hate your fucking guts!
Incidentally, for a number of very good reasons.
First of all, civilians are so goddamn stupid. They leave things
lying around, just begging thieves to steal them. They park cars in
high crime areas and leave portable TVs, cameras, wallets, purses,
coats, luggage, grocery bags and briefcases in plain view on the seat.
Oh, sure maybe they'll remember to close all the windows and lock the
doors, but do you know how easy it is to bust a car window? How fast
can it be done? A ten-year-old can do it in less than six seconds! And
a poor cop has another Larceny from Auto on his hands. Another crime to
write a report on, waste another half hour on. Another crime to make
him look bad.
Meanwhile the asshole who left the family heirlooms on the back
seat in the first place is raising hell about where were the cops when
the car was being looted. He's planning to write irate letters to the
mayor and the police commissioner complaining about what a lousy police
force you have here; they can't even keep my car from getting ripped
off! What, were they drinking coffee somewhere?
And the cops are saying to themselves. Lemme tell ya, fuckhead, we
were seven blocks away, taking another stupid report from another
jerkoff civilian about his fucking car being broken into because he left
his shit on the back seat too!
These civilians can't figure out that maybe they shouldn't leave
stuff lying around un-attended where anybody can just pick it up and
boogie. Maybe they should put the shit in the trunk, where no one but
Superman is gonna see it. Maybe they should do that before they get to
wherever they're going just in case some riffraff is hanging around
watching them while the car is being secured.
Another thing that drives cops wild is the, "surely this doesn't
apply to me" syndrome, which never fails to reveal itself at scenes of
sniper or barricade incidents. There's always some asshole walking down
the street (or jogging or driving) who thinks the police cars blocking
off the area, the ropes marked Police Line: Do Not Cross, the cops
crouched behind cars pointing revolvers and carbines and shotguns and
bazookas at some building has nothing whatsoever to do with him, so he
weasels around the barricades or slithers under the restraining ropes
and blithely continues on his way, right into the field of fire.
The result is that some cop risks his ass (or her's, don't forget,
the cops include women now) to go after the cretin and drag him, usually
under protest, back to safety. All of these cops, including the one
risking his ass, devoutly hope that the sniper will get off one
miraculous shot and drill the idiot right between the horns, which would
have two immediate effects. The quiche-for-brains civilian would be
dispatched to his just reward and every cop on the scene would
instantaneously be licensed to kill the scumbag doing the sniping.
Whereupon the cops would destroy the whole fucking building, sniper and
all, in about 30 seconds, which is what they wanted to do in the first
place, except the brass wouldn't let them because the motherfucker
hadn't killed anybody yet.
An allied phenomenon is the My isn't this amusing behavior
exhibited, usually by Yuppies or other members of higher society, at
some emergency scenes. For example, a group of trendy types will be
strolling down the street when a squad car with lights flashing and
siren on screeches up to a building. They'll watch the cops yank out
their guns and run up to the door, flatten themselves against the wall,
and peep into the place cautiously. Now, if you think about it,
something serious could be happening here. Cops usually don't pull
their revolvers to go get a cup of coffee. any five-year-old ghetto kid
can tell you these cops are definitely ready to cap somebody. But do
our society friends perceive this? Do they stay out of the cops way?
Of course not! They think it's vastly amusing. And, of course, since
they're not involved in the funny little game the cops are playing, they
think nothing can happen to them! While the ghetto kid is hiding
behind a car for the shooting to start, Muffy and Chip and Biffy are
continuing their stroll, right up to the officers, tittering among
themselves about how silly the cops look, all scrunched up against the
wall, trying to look in through the door without stopping bullets with
their foreheads.
What the cops are hoping at that point is for a homicidal holdup
man to come busting out the door with a sawed-off shotgun. They're
hoping he has it loaded with elephant shot, and that he immediately
identifies our socialites as serious threats to his personal well-being.
They're hoping he has just enough ammunition to blast the shit out of
the gigglers, but not enough to return fire when the cops open up on
him.
Of course, if that actually happens, the poor cops will be in a
world of trouble for not protecting the innocent bystanders. The brass
wouldn't even want to hear that the shitheads probably didn't have
enough sense to come in out of an acid rain. Somebody ought to tell all
the quiche eaters out there to stand back when they encounter someone
with a gun in his hand, whether he happens to be wearing a badge or a
ski mask.
Civilians also aggravate cops in a number of other ways. One of
their favorite games is Officer, can you tell me? A cop knows he's been
selected to play this game whenever someone approaches and utters those
magic words. Now, it's okay if they continue with How to get to so and
so street? or Where such and such a place is located? After all, cops
are supposed to be familiar with the area they work. But it eats the
lining of their stomachs when some jerkoff asks, Where can I catch the
number fifty-four bus? Or, Where can I find a telephone?
Cops look forward to their last day before retirement, when they
can safely give these douche bags the answer they've been choking back
for 20 years: No, maggot, I can't tell you where the fifty-four bus
runs! What does this look like an MTA uniform? Go ask a fucking bus
driver! And, No, dog breath, I don't know where you can find a phone,
except wherever your fucking eyes see one! Take your head out of your
ass and look for one.
And cops just love to find a guy parking his car in a crosswalk
next to a fire hydrant at a bus stop posted with a sigh saying, Don't
Even Think About Stopping, Standing, or Parking Here. Cars Towed Away,
Forfeited to the Government, and Sold at Public Auction. And the jerk
asks, Officer, may I park here a minute?
What are you nuts? Of course ya can park here! As long as ya
like! Leave it there all day! Ya don't see anything that says ya
can't, do ya? You're welcome. See ya later. The cop then drives
around the corner and calls a tow truck to remove the vehicle. Later,
in traffic court, the idiot will be whining to the judge But, Your
Honor, I asked an officer if I could park there, and he said I could!
No, I don't know which officer, but I did ask! Honest! No, wait, Judge,
I can't afford five hundred dollars! This isn't fair! I'm not creating
a disturbance! I've got rights! Get your hands off me! Where are you
taking me? What do you mean , ten days for contempt of court? What did
I do? Wait, wait,... If you should happen to see a cop humming
contentedly and smiling to himself for no apparent reason, he may have
won this game.
Wildly unrealistic civilian expectations also contribute to a cop's
distaste for the general citizenry. An officer can be running his ass
off all day or night handling call after call and writing volumes of
police reports, but everybody thinks their problem is the only thing he
has to work on. The policeman may have a few worries, too. Ever think
of that? the sergeant is on him because he's been late for roll call a
few days; he's been battling like a badger with his wife, who's just
about to leave him because he never takes her anywhere and doesn't spend
enough time at home and the kids need braces and the station wagon needs
a major engine overhaul and where are we gonna get the money to pay for
all that and we haven't had a real vacation for years and all you do is
hang around with other cops and you've been drinking too much lately and
I could've married that wonderful guy I was going with when I met you
and lived happily ever after and why don't you get a regular job with
regular days off and no night shifts and decent pay and a chance for
advancement and no one throwing bottles or taking wild potshots at you?
Meanwhile, that sweet young thing he met on a call last month says
her period is late. Internal Affairs is investigating him on fucking up
a disorderly last week; the captain is pissed at him for tagging a
councilman's car; a burglar's tearing up the businesses on his post; and
he's already handled two robberies, three family fights, a stolen auto,
and a half dozen juvenile complaints today.
Now here he is, on another juvenile call, trying to explain to some
bimbo, who's the president of her neighborhood improvement association,
that the security of Western Civilization is not really threatened all
that much by the kids who hang around on the corner by her house. Yes,
officer, I know they're not there now. They always leave when you come
by. But after you're gone, they come right back, don't you see, and
continue their disturbance. It's intolerable! I'm so upset, I can
barely sleep at night.
By now, the cops eyes have glazed over. What we need here,
officer, she continues vehemently, Is greater attention to this matter
by the police. You and some other officers should hide and stake out
that corner so those renegades wouldn't see you. Then you could catch
them in the act! Yes, ma'am, we'd love to stake out that corner a few
hours every night, since we don't have anything else to do, but I've got
a better idea, he'd like to say. Here's a box of fragmentation grenades
the Department obtained from the Army just for situations like this.
The next time you see those little fuckers out there, just lob a couple
of these into the crowd and get down!
Or he's got and artsy-craftsy type who's moved into a tough,
rundown neighborhood and decides it's gotta be cleaned up. You know,
Urban Pioneers. The cops see a lot of them now. Most of them are
intelligent(?), talented, hard-working, well-paid folks with masochistic
chromosomes interspersed among their otherwise normal genes. They have
nice jobs, live in nice homes, and they somehow decide that it would be
a marvelous idea to move into a slum and get yoked, roped, looted, and
pillaged on a regular basis. What else do you expect? Peace and
harmony? It's like tossing a juicy little pig into a piranha tank.
Moving day: Here come the pioneers, dropping all their groovy gear
from their Volvo station wagon, setting it on the sidewalk so everyone
can get a good look and the food processor, the microwave, the stereo
system, the color TV, the tape deck, etc. At the same time, the local
burglars are appraising the goods unofficially and calculating how much
they can get for the TV down at the corner bar, how much the stereo will
bring at Joe's garage, who might want the tape deck at the barber shop,
and maybe mama can use the microwave herself.
When the pioneers get ripped off, the cops figure they asked for
it, and they got it. You want to poke your arm through the bars of a
tiger cage? Fuck you! Don't be amazed when he eats it for lunch! The
cops regard it as naive for trendies to move into crime zones and
conduct their lives the same way they did up on Society Hill. In fact,
they can't fathom why anyone who didn't have to would want to move there
at all, regardless of how they want to live or how prepared they might
be to adapt their behavior. That's probably because the cops are
intimately acquainted with all those petty but disturbing crimes and
nasty little incidents that never make the newspapers but profoundly
affect the quality of life in a particular area.
Something else that causes premature aging among cops is the, I
don't know who to call, so I'll call the police ploy. Why, the cops ask
themselves, do they get so many calls for things like water leaks, sick
cases, bats in houses, and the like, things that have nothing whatsoever
to do with law enforcement or the maintenance of public order? They
figure it's because civilians are getting more and more accustomed to
having the government solve problems for them, and the local P.D. is the
only governmental agency that'll even answer the phone a 3:00 am, let
alone send anybody.
So, when the call comes over the radio to go to such-and-such
address for a water leak, the assigned officer rolls his eyes,
acknowledges, responds, surveys the problem, and tells the complainant,
Yep, that's a water leak all right! No doubt about it. Ya probably
ought to call a plumber! And it might not be a bad idea to turn off
your main valve for a while. Or, Yep, your Aunt Minnie's sick all
right! Ya probably ought to get'er to a doctor tomorrow if she doesn't
get any better by then.S Or, Yep, that's a bat all right! Mebbe ya
ought to open the windows so it can fly outside again!
In the meantime our hero is wasting his time on this bullshit call,
maybe someone is having a real problem out there, like getting raped,
robbed or killed. Street cops would like to work the phones just once
and catch a few of these idiotic complaints: A bat in your house? No
need to send an officer when I can tell ya what to do right here on the
phone, pal! Close all your doors and windows right away. Pour gasoline
all over your furniture. That's it. Now, set it on fire and get
everybody outside! Yeah, you'll get the little motherfucker for sure!
That's okay, call us anytime.
Probably the most serious beef cops have with civilians relates to
those situations in which the use of force becomes necessary to deal
with some desperado who may have just robbed a bank, iced somebody, beat
up his wife and kids, or wounded some cop, and now he's caught but won't
give up. He's not going to be taken alive, he's going to take some cops
with him, and you better say your prayers, you pig bastards! Naturally,
if the chump's armed with any kind of weapon, the cops are going to
shoot the shit out of him so bad they'll be able to open up his body
later as a lead mine. If he's not armed, and the cops aren't creative
enough to find a weapon for him, they'll beat him into raw meat and hope
he spends the next few weeks in traction. They view it as a learning
experience for the asshole. You fuck up somebody, you find out what it
feels like to get fucked up. Don't like it? Don't do it again! It's
called Street Justice, and civilians approve of it as much as cops do,
even if they don't admit it.
Remember how the audience cheered when Charles Bronson fucked up
the bad guys in Death Wish? How they scream with joy every time Clint
Eastwood's Dirty Harry makes his day by blowing up some rotten scumball
with his .44 Magnum? What they applaud is the administration of street
justice. The old eye-for-an-eye concept, one of mankind's most primal
instincts. All of us have it, especially cops.
It severely offends and deeply hurts cops when they administer a
dose of good old-fashioned street justice only to have some bleeding-
heart do-gooder happens upon the scene at the last minute, when the
hairbag is at last getting his just deserts, and start hollering about
police brutality. Cops regard that as very serious business indeed.
Brutality can get them fired. Get fired from one police department, and
it's tough to get a job as a cop anywhere else ever again.
Brutality exposes the cop to civil liability as well. Also, his
superior officers, the police department as an agency, and maybe even
the local government itself. You've seen those segments on 60 Minutes,
right? Some cop screws up, gets sued along with everybody else in the
department who had anything to do with him, and the city or county ends
up paying the plaintiff umpty-ump million dollars, raising taxes and
hocking its fire engines in the process. What do think happens to the
cop who fucked up in the first place? He's done for.
On many occasions when the cops are accused of excessive force, the
apparent brutality is a misperception by some observer who isn't
acquainted with the realities of police work. For example, do you have
any idea how hard it is to handcuff someone who really doesn't want to
be handcuffed? Without hurting them? It's almost impossible for one
cop to accomplish by himself unless he beats the hell out of the
prisoner first, which would also be viewed a brutality! It frequently
takes three or four cops to handcuff one son of a bitch who's determined
to battle them.
In situations like that, it's not unusual for the cops to hear
someone in the crowd of onlookers comment on how they're ganging up on
the poor bastard and beating him unnecessarily. This makes them feel
like telling the complainer, Hey, motherfucker, you think you can
handcuff this shithead by yourself without killing him first? C'mere!
You're deputized! Now, go ahead and do it!
The problem is that, in addition to being unfamiliar with how
difficult it is in the real world to physically control someone without
beating his ass, last-minute observers usually don't have the
opportunity to see for themselves, like they do in the movies and on TV,
what a fucking monster the suspect might be. If they did, they'd
probably holler at the cops to beat his ass some more. They might
actually even want to help! The best thing for civilians to do if
they think they see the cops rough up somebody too much is to keep their
mouths shut at the scene, and to make inquiries of the police brass
later on. There might be ample justification for the degree of force
used that just wasn't apparent at the time of the arrest. If not, the
brass will be very interested in the complaint. If one of their cops
went over the deep end, they'll want to know about it. Most of this
comes down to common sense, a characteristic the cops feel most
civilians lack. One of the elements of common sense is thinking before
opening one's yap or taking other action. Just a brief moment of
thought will often prevent the utterance of something stupid or the
commission of some idiotic act that will, among other things, generate
nothing but contempt from the average street cop. Think, and it might
mean getting a warning instead of a traffic ticket. Or getting sent on
your way rather than being arrested. Or continuing on to your original
destination instead of to the hospital. It might mean getting some real
assistance instead of the runaround. The very least it'll get you is a
measure of respect cops seldom show civilians. Act like you've got a
little sense, and even if the cops don't love you, at least they won't
hate you.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
PUBLIC SPACE ON INFO HIGHWAY: CALL CONGRESS ASAP!
By The Center For Media Education (cme@access1.digex.net)
People For the American Way is 300,000-member nonpartisan constitutional
liberties public interest organization. 2000 M Street NW, Suite 400,
Washington DC 20036.
ACTION ALERT -- From People For the American Way (DC)
SENATE TO ACT ON INFO-HIGHWAY BILL -- ACTIVISTS NEEDED TO ENSURE THAT
PUBLIC ACCESS PROVISIONS ARE INCLUDED.
The Issue
- The "information superhighway" has the potential to give rise to a new
era of democratic self governance by providing the means through which
civic discourse can flourish. Turning this into a reality means that
those committed to promoting this new marketplace of ideas must be given
the tools to use new telecommunications networks.
- A diverse coalition of public interest organizations is supporting
legislation introduced by Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Chairman of the
Communications Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, to encourage
this new marketplace of ideas by ensuring that the public has access to
the information superhighway is protected (S. 2195).
- Without reserved capacity, the ability of local governmental
institutions, libraries, schools, public broadcasters and other nonprofit
organizations to take advantage of new telecommunications technologies
will be determined by private gatekeepers who have few economic incentives
to permit those institutions without the means to pay commercial rates
access to their networks.
- Without Senator Inouye's legislation, the information superhighway will
carry little more than video games, movies on demand and home shopping.
- There has been a great deal of rhetoric about the telecommunications
networks of the future being of unlimited capacity. This is certainly the
goal. However, it is necessary to ensure that between now and the time
that such capacity is unlimited, that there is meaningful access available
for those entities proving important educational, cultural, informational,
civic and charitable services to the public.
- Senator Inouye's legislation must be included in the debate with the
larger telecommunications legislation (S. 1822) introduced by Senator
Ernest Hollings (D-SC), Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
LEGISLATIVE TIMING
Senator Hollings (D-SC), Chairman of the Commerce Committee, and Senator
Danforth (R-MO), Ranking Minority Member of the Commerce Committee are
busily working on amendments to S. 1822, a major telecommunications reform
bill. Next week, the full Committee is expected to consider these
amendments. Therefore, a public access provision must be included now.
ACTION REQUEST
- Please call Senator Hollings at the Commerce Committee and Senator
Danforth (Ranking Minority Member) immediately!! Ask them to support S.
2195 and guarantee that requirements are put in place for public access at
low or no-cost rates are included in the Chairman's Mark. Phone calls on
this issue by the public will have a profound effect on the outcome of
this legislation--so please call!
Senator Hollings 202-224-5115
Senator Danforth 202-224-6154
- Please also call Senator Inouye and encourage him to continue to push
for passage of S. 2195 and to seek it's combination with S. 1822.
Inouye (D-HI) 202-224-3934
- Please try to find the time to make a few calls and ask the other
Senators on the Commerce Committee to support S. 2195 and ensure public
access provisions are included in S. 1822. Other Senators on the Commerce
Committee are:
Exon (D-NB) 202-224-4224
Ford (D-KY) 202-224-4343
Rockefeller (D-WV) 202-224-6472
Kerry (D-MA) 202-224-2742
Breaux (D-LA) 202-224-4623
Bryan (D-NV) 202-224-6244
Robb (D-VA) 202-224-4024
Dorgan (D-ND) 202-224-2551
Matthews (D-TN) 202-224-4944
Packwood (R-OR) 202-224-5244
Pressler (R-SD) 202-224-5842
Stevens (R-AK) 202-224-3004
McCain (R-AZ) 202-224-2235
Burns (R-MT) 202-224-2644
Gorton (R-WA) 202-224-3441
Lott (R-Miss.) 202-224-6253
Hutchison (R-TX) 202-224-5922
- Calling these Senators *works*!!
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
SOFTWARE KEY ESCROW - A NEW THREAT?
By Timothy May (tcmay@netcom.com)
At the June Cypherpunks meeting, Whit Diffie (co-inventor of
public-key crypto, as you should all know) filled us in on a workshop
on "key escrow" held in Karlsruhe, Germany. All the usual suspects
were there, and I gather that part of the purpose was to bring the
Europeans "into the tent" on key escrow, to deal with their objections
to Clipper, and so on.
Diffie described in some detail a software-based scheme developed by
NIST (and Dorothy Denning, if I recall correctly) that, as I recall
the details, avoids public key methods. Perhaps this was also
described here on the list. I know Bill Stewart has recently discussed
it in sci.crypt or talk.politics.crypto.
What has me worried about it now is evidence from more than one source
that this program is actually much further along than being merely a
"trial balloon" being floated. In fact, it now looks as though the
hardware-based key escrow systems will be deemphasized, as Al Gore's
letter seems to say, in favor of software-based schemes.
While I've been skeptical that software-based schemes are secure (the
bits are hardly secure against tampering), the addition of negotiation
with another site (a lot like online clearing of digital cash, it
seems) can make it nearly impossible for tampering to occur. That is,
I'm now more persuaded that the NIST/NSA(?) proposal would allow
software-based key escrow.
Here's the rub:
* Suppose the various software vendors are "incentivized" to include
this in upcoming releases. For example, in 30 million copies of
Microsoft's "Chicago" (Windows 4.0) that will hit the streets early in
'95 (betas are being used today by many).
* This solves the "infrastructure" or "fax effect" problem--key escrow
gets widely deployed, in a way that Clipper was apparently never going
to be (did any of you know _anybody_ planning to buy a "Surety"
phone?).
(Granted, this is key escrow for computers, not for voice
communication. More on this later.)
* Once widely deployed, with not talk of the government holding the
keys, then eventual "mandatory key escrow" can be proposed, passed
into law by Executive Order (Emergency Order, Presidential Directive,
whatever your paranoia supports), an act of Congress, etc.
I don't claim this scenario is a sure thing, or that it can't be
stopped. But if in fact a "software key escrow" system is in the
works, and is more than just a "trial balloon," then we as Cypherpunks
should begin to "do our thing," the thing we've actually done pretty
well in the past. To wit: examine the implications, talk to the
lobbyist groups about what it means, plan sabotage efforts (sabotage
of public opinion, not planting bugs in the Chicago code!), and
develop ways to make sure that a voluntary key escrow system could
never be made mandatory.
(Why would _anyone_ ever use a voluntary key escrow system? Lots of
reasons, which is why I don't condemn key escrow automatically.
Partners in a business may want access under the right circumstances
to files. Corporations may want corporate encryption accessible under
emergencyy circumstances (e.g., Accounting and Legal are escrow
agencies). And individuals who forget their keys--which happens all
the time--may want the emergency option of asking their friends who
agreed to hold the key escrow stuff to help them. Lots of other
reasons. And lots of chances for abuse, independent of mandatory key escrow.)
But there are extreme dangers in having the infrastructure of a
software key escrow system widely deployed.
I can't see how a widely-deployed (e.g., all copies of Chicago, etc.)
"voluntary key escrow" system would remain voluntary for long. It
looks to me that the strategy is to get the infrastructure widely
deployed with no mention of a government role, and then to bring the
government in as a key holder.
(The shift of focus away from telephone communications to data is an
important one. I can see several reasons. First, this allows wide
deployment by integration into next-gen operating systems. A few
vendors can be "incentivized." Second, voice systems are increasingly
turning into data systems, with all the stuff surrounding ISDN,
cable/telco alliances, "set-top" boxes, voice encryption on home
computers, etc. Third, an infrastructure for software key escrow would
make the backward extension to voice key escrow more palatable. And
finally, there is a likely awareness that the "terrorist rings" and
"pedophile circles" they claim to want to infiltrate are more than
likely already using computers and encryption, not simple voice lines.
This will be even more so in the future. So, the shift of focus to
data is understandable. That it's a much easier system in which to get
40-60 million installed systems _almost overnight_ is also not lost on
NIST and NSA, I'm sure.)
In other words, a different approach than with Clipper, where
essentially nobody was planning to buy the "Surety" phones (except
maybe a few thousand) but the government role was very prominent--and
attackable, as we all saw. Here, the scenario might be to get 40-60
million units out there (Chicago, next iteration of Macintosh OS,
maybe Sun, etc.) and then, after some series of events (bombings,
pedophile rings, etc.) roll in the mandatory aspects.
Enforcement is always an issue, and I agree that many bypasses exist.
But as Diffie notes, the "War on Drugs" enlistment of corporations was
done with various threats that corporations would lose
assets/contracts unless they cooperated. I could see the same thing
for a software-based key escrow.
A potentially dangerous situation.
I was the one who posted the Dorothy Denning "trial balloon" stuff to
sci.crypt, in October of 1992, six months before it all became real
with the announcement of Clipper. This generated more than a thousand
postings, not all of them useful (:-}), and helped prepare us for the
shock of the Clipper proposal the following April.
I see this software-based key escrow the same way. Time to start
thinking about how to stop it now, before it's gone much further.
Putting Microsoft's feet to the fire, getting them to commit to *not*
including any form of software-based key escrow in any future releases
of Windows (Chicago or Daytona) could be a concrete step in the right
direction. Ditto for Apple.
I'm sure we can think of other steps to help derail widespread
deployment of this infrastructure.
--Tim May
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
HOODS HIT THE HIGHWAY; COMPUTER USERS WARNED OF SCAMS
By Charlotte-Anne Lucas
Austin Bureau of The Dallas Morning News
REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
AUSTIN -- Computer users, beware: Driving on the information highway,
it's possible to get fleeced.
Scam artists have hit the cyberspace, offering high-tech ponzi schemes,
sending illegal electronic chain letters and hyping virtually worthless
stock, according to state securities regulators across the nation.
In Texas, regulators say an Austin retiree lost $10,000 in a fake mutual
fund deal sold by a man who promoted his "money managing" skills through
an on-line computer service.
"The danger here is that cyberspace, which could be a beneficial way for
consumers to do a better job of informing themselves, will instead be
discredited as a haven for fast-buck artists," said Denise Voigt
Crawford, the Texas Securities Commissioner.
In New Jersey and Missouri on Thursday, securities regulators filed
cease and desist orders against promoters who used computer links to
tout allegedly fraudulent deals. Texas regulators say it is likely that
they will seek an indictment in the case of the nonexistent mutual fund.
But with nearly 4 million computer users nationwide linked into
commercial computer services and 20 million people on the internet,
a world-wide computer network, "it is almost too big to police
effectively," said Jared Silverman, chief of the New Jersey Bureau of
Securities and chairman of a multi-state team that investigates computer
fraud.
In response, regulators in all 50 states issued a bulletin to
investigators, describing the potential frauds and listing steps small
investors can take to protect themselves. "We're trying to tell people
to be careful," said Ms. Crawford, "there is a new fraud on the
horizon."
Although regulators are concerned about the problem, Ms. Crawford
acknowledges enforcement will be a challenge. Because electronic
conversations, or E-mail, are considered private, "we don't know what
difficulties we are going to have getting subpoenas enforced or what
kind of cooperation we will get from (commercial bulletin board
systems)." [sic]
Officials say promoters tend to advertise offers or stock tips on the
financial bulletin board sections of on-line computer services such as
CompuServe, America Online and Prodigy, or in the specialized discussion
forums in the Internet.
Regulators said that of 75,000 messages posted on one computer service
bulletin board during a recent two-week period, 5,600 were devoted to
investment topics. While some commercial computer bulletin board
services try to control the publicly posted investment tips, most do not
try to control most communications on the service.
What begins as innocent E-mail can end with an unwary investor "getting
cleaned out by high-tech schemers," said Ms. Crawford.
In Texas, the case under investigation began when an Austin retiree
posted a public note in a commercial bulletin board system looking for
conversations about the stock market, according to John A. Peralta,
deputy director of enforcement at the Texas Securities Board.
"He was contacted. It turned into a private E-mail conversation, a
telephone conversation and then exchanges through the mail," said
Mr. Peralta. But the person who promoted himself on the computer as a
skilled money manager turned out to be unlicensed -- and the mutual fund
the retiree invested in turned out to be nonexistent.
Mr. Peralta said at least one other person, not from Texas, invested
$90,000 in the same deal, "We are aware of two, but we don't really
know," he said. "There may be dozens of victims."
Securities regulators began taking interest in on-line scams last fall,
after Mr. Silverman -- a computer junkie -- raised the issue at a
national meeting of regulators. "I heard stories about things going on
on computer bulletin board services, and I have been monitoring these
things for close to a year," he said.
In fact, the New Jersey case came from Mr. Siverman's off-hours cruising
of an on-line service. "I sit at a keyboard two hours a day -- to the
chagrin of my wife -- scanning these things," he said.
What he found was a promoter pushing an E-mail chain letter. The
promoter, identified only as from San Antonio, claimed that in exchange
for $5, investors could earn $60,000 in three to six weeks.
Regulators said participants were told to send $1 to each of five people
on a list in the computer bulletin board, add their own name to the list
and post it on 10 different computer bulletin board sites.
That, regulators said in a statement, "amounted to a high-tech
variation on the old pyramid scam, which is barred by federal and state
laws."
In Missouri, regulators Thursday moved against an unlicensed stockbroker
for touting his services and "making duubious [sic] claims for stocks
not registered for sale in the state." Among other things, regulators
said, the promoter falsely claimed that Donald Trump was a "major,
behind-the-scenes player in a tiny cruise line" whose stock he pitched.
Ms. Crawford said that while computer users may be sophisticated in some
ways, they still are attractive targets because they tend to have
discretionary income and frequently are looking for ways to invest their
money.
Some of the commercial services also allow users to use various aliases,
making it all the more difficult for investigators to figure out who
they are really communication with.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
THE INTERNET AND THE ANTI-NET
By Nick Arnett (nicka@mccmedia.com)
Two public internetworks are better than one
Networking policy debates tend to paint a future monolithic internetwork
that will follow consistent policies despite a number of independent
operators. Although that's how the interstate highway and telephone
systems -- favorite metaphors for network futurists -- operate, historical
comparisons suggest that it is probably not what the future holds. Two
distinct, interconnected publicly accessible digital internetworks are
likely to emerge, which is surely better than just one.
One of the future internetworks will grow out of today's Internet, whose
roots are in the technology and scientific/academic communities, funded by
government, institutions and increasingly, corporate and individual users.
Although the Internet will support commercial services, they rarely will
depend on advertising. The other great internetwork will grow out of the
technology and mass communications industries, especially cable and
broadcast industries. The "Anti-net" will rely on advertising revenue to
recoup the cost of the infrastructure necessary to create cheap, high-speed
bandwidth. (I call this second network the Anti-net not to be a demagogue
but to make a historical allusion, explained shortly.) All three
communities -- technology, science and academia, and mass media -- will
participate in many joint projects. The most successful new ventures often
will arise from three-way collaborations; skills of each are essential to
create and deliver network-based information products and services.
The Internet community reacts with profound anger and resentment at
Anti-net behavior on the Internet -- in net-speak, "spamming" advertising
messages into hundreds of discussions. The outrage is based in part on the
idealistic traditions of academic and scientific freedom of thought and
debate, but there's more behind it. Anger and resentment fueled by the
world's love-hate relationship with the mass media, particularly
television, surface in many other contexts. Nearly everyone in the modern
world and large segments of the third world watches television; nearly all
think broadcast television is stupid, offering a homogenized,
sensationalized point of view that serves advertising interests above all
others. In competition with television's hypnotic powers, or perhaps
simply due to the high cost of distribution, other mass media have followed
suit.
Idealistic defenders of the Internet's purity believe they are waging a
humanitarian or even a holy war that pits a democracy of ideas against the
mass media's empty promises and indulgences. Television and its kin offer
the false idols and communities of soaps, sitcoms and sports. The mass
media tantalize with suggestions of healing, wealth, popularity and
advertising's other blessings and temptations. Internet idealists even
question the U.S. administration's unclear proposal of an "information
superhighway," suspecting that the masses will be taxed only to further
expand the Anti-net's stranglehold on information.
The same kind of stage was set 500 years ago. The convergence of
inexpensive printing and inexpensive paper began to loosen the Roman
Catholic church's centuries-old stranglehold on cultural information. The
church's rise to power centuries earlier had followed the arrival of the
Dark Ages, caused in Marshall McLuhan's analysis by the loss of papyrus
supplies. The church quickly became the best customer of many of the early
printer-publishers, but not to disseminate information, only to make money.
The earliest dated publication of Johann Gutenberg himself was a "papal
indulgence" to raise money for the church's defense against the Turk
invasions. Indulgences were papers sold to the common folk to pay for the
Pope's remission of their sins, a sort of insurance against the wrath of
God. Indulgences had been sold by the church since the 11th century, but
shortly after the arrival of printing, the pope expanded the market
considerably by extending indulgences to include souls in purgatory.
Indulgence revenue was shared with government officials, becoming almost a
form of state and holy taxation. The money financed the church's holy
wars, as well as church officials' luxurious lifestyles.
Jumping on the new technology for corrupt purposes, the church had sown the
seeds of its own undoing. The church had the same sort of love-hate
relationship with common people and government that the mass media have
today. The spark for the 15th-century "flame war," in net-speak, was a
monk, Martin Luther. Outraged by the depth of the church's corruption,
Luther wrote a series of short theses in 1517, questioning indulgences,
papal infallibility, Latin-only Bibles and services, and other
authoritarian, self-serving church practices. Although Luther had
previously written similar theses, something different happened to the 95
that he nailed to the church door in Wittenburg. Printers -- the "hackers"
of their day, poking about the geographic network of church doors and
libraries -- found Luther's theses.
As an academic, Luther enjoyed a certain amount of freedom to raise
potentially heretical arguments against church practice. Nailing his
theses to the Wittenburg door was a standard way to distribute information
to his academic community for discussion, much like putting a research
paper on an Internet server today. In Luther's time, intellectual property
laws hadn't even been contemplated, so his papers were fair game for
publication (as today's Internet postings often seem to be, to the dismay
of many). Luther's ideas quickly became the talk of Europe. Heresy sells,
especially when the questioned authority is corrupt. But the speed of
printing technology caught many by surprise. Even Luther, defending
himself before the pope, was at a loss to explain how so many had been
influenced so fast.
Luther's initial goal was to reform the church. But his ideas were
rejected and he was excommunicated by his order, the pope and the emperor,
convincing Luther that the Antichrist was in charge in Rome. Abandoning
attempts at reform, but accepting Biblical prophecy, Luther resisted the
utopian goal of removing the Antichrist from the papacy. Instead, as a
pacifist, he focused on teaching and preaching his views of true
Christianity. Luther believed that he could make the world a better place
by countering the angst and insecurity caused by the Antichrist, not that
he could save it by his own powers.
Luther's philosophy would serve the Internet's utopians well, especially
those who believe that the Internet's economy of ideas untainted by
advertising must "win" over the mass media's Anti-net ideas. The
Internet's incredibly low cost of distribution almost assures that it will
remain free of advertising-based commerce. Nonetheless, if lobbying by
network idealists succeeds in derailing or co-opting efforts to build an
advertising-based internetwork, then surely commercial interests will
conspire with government officials to destroy or perhaps worse, to take
over the Internet by political and economic means. Historians, instead of
comparing the Internet to the U.S. interstate highway system's success, may
compare it with the near-destruction of the nation's railroad and trolley
infrastructure by corrupt businesses with interests in automobiles and
trucking.
(which, like the Internet, was originally funded for military purposes)
The printing press and cheap paper did not lead to widespread literacy in
Europe; that event awaited the wealth created by the Industrial Revolution
and the need for educated factory workers. Printing technology's immediate
and profound effect was the destruction of the self-serving, homogenized
point of view of a single institution. Although today's mass media don't
claim divine inspiration, they are no less homogenized and at least as
self-serving. The people drown in information overload, but one point of
view is barely discernable from another, ironically encouraging
polarization of issues.
Richard Butler, Australia's ambassador to the United Nations, draws the
most disturbing analogy of all. Butler, a leader in disarmament, compares
the church's actions to the nuclear weapons industry's unwillingness to
come under public scrutiny. Like the church and its Bible, physicists
argued that their subject was too difficult for lay people. Medieval popes
sold salvation; physicists sold destruction. Neither was questioned until
information began to move more freely. The political power of nuclear
weapons has begun to fall in part due to the role of the Internet and fax
communications in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The truly influential and successful early publishers, such as Aldus
Manutius, were merchant technologists who formed collaborations with the
scientific/academic community and even the church, especially those who
dissented against Rome. Out of business needs for economies of scale, they
brought together people with diverse points of view and created books that
appealed to diverse communities. The Renaissance was propelled in part by
books that allowed geniuses such as Copernicus to easily compare and
contrast the many points of view of his predecessors, reaching
world-changing conclusions.
Today we are at a turning point. We are leaving behind a world dominated
by easy, audiovisual, sensational, advertising-based media, beginning a
future in which the mass media's power will be diluted by the low cost of
distribution of many other points of view. Using the Internet is still
something like trying to learn from the pre-Gutenberg libraries, in which
manuscripts were chained to tables and there were no standards for
organization and structure. But like the mendicant scholars of those days,
today's "mendicant sysops," especially on the Internet, are doing much of
the work of organization in exchange for free access to information.
Today, the great opportunity is not to make copies of theses on the digital
church doors. It is to build electronic magazines, newspapers, books,
newsletters, libraries and other collections that organize and package the
writings, photos, videos, sounds and other multimedia information from
diverse points of view on the networks. The Internet, with one foot in
technology and the other in science and academia, needs only a bit of help
from the mass media in order to show the Anti-net how it's done.
------------
Nick Arnett [nicka@mccmedia.com] is president of Multimedia Computing
Corporation, a strategic consulting and publishing company established in
1988. On the World-Wide Web: <URL:http://asearch.mccmedia.com/>
Recommended reading: "The printing press as an agent of change:
Communications and cultural transformation in early-modern Europe," Vols. I
and II. Elizabeth Eisenstein. Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Copyright (c) 1994, Multimedia Computing Corp., Campbell, Calif., U.S.A.
This article is shareware; it may be distributed at no charge, whole and
unaltered, including this notice. If you enjoy reading it and would like
to encourage free distribution of more like it, please send a contribution
to Plugged In (1923 University Ave., East Palo Alto, CA 94303), an
after-school educational program for children in under-served communities.
Multimedia Computing Corp.
Campbell, California
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
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